Travel Musings of a New Yorker

OM’ing in the Catskills!

By the time this goes up, I’ll be on the road heading up to a little town called Franklin in the Catskills in upstate New York (about 2.5 hours north of the city) for my yearly pilgrimage to Heathen Hill for a yoga retreat. I usually go with my friend and primary yoga teacher but since she’s on maternity leave, I’m going with a teacher whose class I’ve taken before, and she was also trained by my teacher so it should be a good time.

I don’t talk about a yoga practice a lot because this is a travel blog (duh) but yoga is my everything. I’ve practiced regularly since 2011 and in January 2017 I received my 200 hour teacher training certificate. I went through the training to gain more knowledge, not necessarily to teach, but I like having the option to teach, too. Since training though, I’ve been extremely picky and particular with the classes I chose to take. I don’t do hot yoga and anything labeled “power” is basically going to be full of people who want to sweat as much as possible so they feel like they’ve gotten a “good” workout without giving a second thought to their alignment.

We learned a very specific method in training that makes the most sense in all the world so when I find a teacher who knows that method and is a cool person to boot, I make note! So, that’s why I’d chosen to go upstate this weekend with this specific teacher. TL;DR: I’m a yoga snob.

The view from the house in the morning.

I digress. This is a small property upstate that is operated by two women, one of whom is a yoga teacher down here in the city. The main house is a beautiful vibrant purple and there are free range chickens wandering the property and it’s absolutely the most serene place in the world. For starters there’s no cell phone service. There is wifi but we don’t get that password (phew). You can maybe get service if you walk to the top of the hill, but who wants to do that when there’s fresh bread and peanut butter and yogurt and coffee to be eaten?

There are two 2-hour yoga classes on Saturday and one 2-hour class on Sunday before we head home. The weekend flies by but it’s worth every one of the very reasonable amount of pennies that this trip costs. Fingers crossed that we won’t hit traffic!